


Always a Queen in Narnia

by imaginary_golux



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Dark, Gen, Heavy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 11:18:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13879767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: The Telmarines arrive while the Pevensies are still on the thrones. Unfortunately, they're not interested in peaceful coexistence.Susan may be crownless, throneless, and countryless, but she is still a Queen.Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Always a Queen in Narnia

Peter died first, because he trusted the Telmarine offer of parley, was even eager to see other Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve after so long without human company beside his siblings, and went to meet them on the shoreline, unarmed and unarmored, with an escort of fauns and centaurs at his back. The Telmarines slew every one of the escort, too, and every one of them died shielding Peter, and he still didn’t make it to safety. Susan doesn’t blame the fauns and centaurs. Much.

Lucy died second, when the Telmarines overran the baggage train of the army, and the dryads shielded Lucy long enough for her to cast herself over a cliff, the cordial clutched tightly in her hand. The dryads burned for that, and Lucy, her body as broken as the cordial’s vial, was brought to Susan and Edmund by the river-god who found her shattered on his rocks. From what Susan heard about what happened to the _other_ women in the baggage train when the Telmarines caught them, Lucy made the right choice. The Telmarines would not have cared that she was barely more than a child.

Edmund died leading the sally which masked the final retreat into Ettinsmoor. At least, Susan hopes he died. The thought of him being held captive, broken and helpless, is far worse than the thought of his body being food for crows. Clever Edmund, who orchestrated the fighting retreat of the Narnians to the north, ever to the north; Edmund who figured out how to bring the dryads with them, curled in acorns and walnuts, to be planted again if they should ever find safe soil; Edmund who sent the dwarves below ground, as deep as they could go, to wait out the Telmarines in their stone-roofed caverns, and as many Talking Animals and other Narnians with them as they could shelter and would go.

Edmund, last of her siblings, his knives in his hands and a Narnian war-cry on his lips as he covered their retreat.

And now Susan stands here in the narrow entrance to the valley, so narrow that a single woman with a sword may block it for as long as she stands true. She has Peter’s sword in her hands and Lucy’s dagger at her hip and her own bow lies behind her, shattered, every arrow spent already. She is Queen Susan the Gentle no longer. She stands with Peter’s sword ready in her hands and dwarven armor heavy on her frame, and prepares to sell her life as dearly as she may, that her people might have even a few more moments to escape.

Once a Queen in Narnia, always a Queen in Narnia. And she is the last Pevensie, the last of Aslan’s chosen kings and queens. For Edmund, she will be Just. For Lucy, she will be Valiant. For Peter, she will be Magnificent.

For herself, she will cast down the title Gentle, for it has failed her, and she is gentle no longer. She has no title anymore, none that she cares to claim. Very well. Let her name alone be so terrible to the Telmarines that for a thousand thousand years they tell their children tales of Queen Susan, who would not surrender. Let them make of her a monster of legend, as terrible as the White Witch was, and shudder when they speak of her. Let them remember that she died a Queen, uncrowned, unthroned, but reigning still.

“Come, then,” she cries to the Telmarines as they gather, hesitating, beyond the bulwark she has built of arrow-skewered corpses. “I am Susan of Narnia, and Narnia yet is mine! Come, cowards! Come and die!”

And so they come.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry! I'll have fluff for everyone next week.
> 
> I'm imaginarygolux on tumblr.


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